Simulation of Biological Processes phần 9 ppsx

resolve the issue, then you have people queuing up to get further understanding.

This comes back to the point I emphasized earlier on. The ‘hands on’ is necessary.

References

Jacob F, Monod J 1961 Genetic regulatory mechanisms in the synthesis of proteins. J Mol Biol

3:318^356

Noble D 2002 Simulation of Na^Ca exchange activity during ischaemia. Ann NY Acad Sci, in

press

206 GENERAL DISCUSSION IV

The IUPS Physiome Project

P.J. Hunter, P.M.F. Nielsen and D. Bullivant

Bioengineering Institute, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract. Modern medicine is currently bene¢ting from the development of new genomic

and proteomic techniques, and also from the development of ever more sophisticated

clinical imaging devices. This will mean that the clinical assessment of a patient’s

medical condition could, in the near future, include information from both diagnostic

imaging and DNA pro¢le or protein expression data. The Physiome Project of the

International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) is attempting to provide a

comprehensive framework for modelling the human body using computational

methods which can incorporate the biochemistry, biophysics and anatomy of cells,

tissues and organs. A major goal of the project is to use computational modelling to

analyse integrative biological function in terms of underlying structure and molecular

mechanisms. To support that goal the project is establishing web-accessible

physiological databases dealing with model-related data, including bibliographic

information, at the cell, tissue, organ and organ system levels. This paper discusses the

development of comprehensive integrative mathematical models of human physiology

based on patient-speci¢c quantitative descriptions of anatomical structures and models

of biophysical processes which reach down to the genetic level.

2002 ‘In silico’ simulation of biological processes. Wiley, Chichester (Novartis Foundation

Symposium 247) p 207^221

Physiology has always been concerned with the integrative function of cells,

organs and whole organisms. However, as reductionist biomedical science

succeeds in elucidating ever more detail at the molecular level, it is increasingly

di⁄cult for physiologists to relate integrated whole organ function to underlying

biophysically detailed mechanisms. Understanding a re-entrant arrhythmia in the

heart, for example, depends on knowledge of not only numerous cellular ionic

current mechanisms and signal transduction pathways, but also larger scale

myocardial tissue structure and the spatial distribution of ion channel and gap

junction densities.

The only means of coping with this explosion in complexity is mathematical

modelling
a situation very familiar to engineers and physicists who have long

based their design and analysis of complex systems on computer models. Biological

systems, however, are vastly more complex than human engineered systems and

understanding them will require specially designed software and instrumentation

207

‘In Silico’ Simulation of Biological Processes: Novartis Foundation Symposium, Volume 247

Edited by Gregory Bock and Jamie A. Goode

Copyright ¶ Novartis Foundation 2002.

ISBN: 0-470-84480-9